Welcome to  "Living With Feeling", our new podcast series about emotions in the 21st Century. Please subscribe via Apple, Spotify, Acast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Search for "Living With Feeling" or follow one of the links below. 
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Living With Feeling. Trailer.

In this first episode of "Living With Feeling" - our new series about emotions in the 21st century - priest and writer Giles Fraser and psychotherapist Philippa Perry join Thomas Dixon for a lively conversation, tackling some big questions about the place of emotions in modern culture.

Philippa, Giles, and Thomas discuss whether people are too ready to interpret painful or difficult emotions as signs of mental illness, and whether it is always true that "Your emotions are valid".

Giles confesses to an emotional outburst in the middle of the night, and suggests we should all try to be a bit more like the Queen, while Philippa explains how important it is to be able to live with and contain our own feelings, and those of our children, without necessarily always expressing them.

Thomas asks what Christianity and psychotherapy have to say about the idea that we are all emotionally broken or disordered in some way, and asks Giles and Philippa for their views about smartphones and emotions, and whether they would like to be cared for by a robot nurse, and if not why not.

"Living With Feeling" is produced by Natalie Steed for Rhubarb Rhubarb, and supported by the Wellcome Trust.

To find out more about the work of the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions, please visit The Emotions Lab website at emotionslab.org

Rethinking Emotions

Unexpected item in bagging area! Machines can provoke many emotions, including rage and anxiety. But can they also care?

In Episode 2 of "Living With Feeling", historian of nursing Sarah Chaney meets some care robots and discusses with experts what these machines are for, and what they can offer. Sarah probes the potential and the limitations of care robots - and looks at historical ideas from earlier eras about emotional qualities, including fortitude and compassion, which would be shown by the ideal human nurse. Sarah and her interviewees also discuss the idea of "emotional labour" and also the racial and gendered stereotypes associated with nursing that are embodied in the way robot nurses are designed. 

Dr Sarah Chaney is a historian of nursing and emotions. Her most recent book is Am I Normal? The 200-Year Search for Normal People (and Why They Don’t Exist). She is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions. @KentishScribble

Robots in this episode came from the Can Robots Care exhibition at the Thackray Museum of Medicine (Paro and Miro)

Dr Amelia de Falco, is Associate Professor Of Medical Humanities at the University Of Leeds @AmeliaDefalco

Prof. Rena Papadopoulos is Professor of Transcultural Health & Nursing at Middlesex University, London @irena_pap

Prof. Anna Romina Guevarra is Associate Professor and Founding Director of the Global Asian Studies Program at the University of Illinois Chicago @AnnaRGuevarra 

Amanda Gwinnup is a PhD candidate at the University of Huddersfield researching the post-war experiences of disabled WWI nurses @WW1NurseHist

Professor Pam Smith is Professorial Fellow and former Head of Nursing Studies in the School of Health in Social Science Edinburgh University.


"Living With Feeling" is produced by Natalie Steed, and supported by the Wellcome Trust, for the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions. Find out more about our work at The Emotions Lab website.

Robot Nurses

Should mindfulness and happiness take their place on the school curriculum alongside maths and literacy?

Thomas Dixon asks whether 200-year-old ideas about love, emotions, and primary education are still relevant today. He visits three schools with different approaches to emotions, and meets experts on mental health and wellbeing - asking whether there is a crisis in young people's mental health today, whether schools should be part of the solution, and if so what that solution might look like. Katharine Birbalsingh talks to Thomas about the "tough love" approach at Michaela Community School, and discusses whether it is harsh, or loving, to try to instil an ethos of Stoicism and individual resilience: "You say it's mean, I say it's love."

Adrian Bethune is a primary school teacher, the author of "Wellbeing in the Primary Classroom" and founder of “Teachappy”, an organisation committed to putting wellbeing and happiness at the heart of education. @AdrianBethune

Dr Lucy Foulkes is a Senior Research Fellow at the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families and an honorary lecturer in psychology at UCL. She is the author of "What Mental Illness Really Is… (and what it isn’t)". @lfoulkesy

Dr Alex Turner is Applied Research Lead at The Children's Society @DrAlexLTurner

Louis Weinstock is a psychotherapist and the author of "How the World is Making Our Children Mad and What to Do About It"

Michael Eggleton is Headteacher of the Charles Dickens Primary School and Nursery, a research school in Southwark, where he leads their wellbeing curriculum @Michael_cdps

Katharine Birbalsingh is Headmistress of Michaela Community School, Wembley, and Chair of the government's Social Mobility Commisssion. @Miss_Snuffy

"Living With Feeling" is produced by Natalie Steed for Rhubarb Rhubarb, and supported by the Wellcome Trust. It is brought to you by the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions. Find out more about our work at The Emotions Lab website.

Happiness Lessons

When it comes to childhood trauma, do our bodies keep the score, and with what emotional impacts?

Historian of child psychology Emma Sutton finds out about the recent explosion of interest in "trauma-informed" approaches and their impact on family relationships. She tries out some trauma-informed therapy herself, and discusses with therapists and experts what this approach can mean for dealing with the aftermath of adverse childhood experiences - including the additional harm done to families when someone decides to "go no contact" with a parent.

Emma discusses with Reverend Giles Fraser the dangers of overly medicalising painful experiences - and Giles speaks about his own experience of being beaten frequently when at school. The episode ends with a visit to the Kazzum Arts project and its director Alex Evans - who speaks about the powerful influence that adults can have in protecting children from the worst effects of trauma, by being playful, curious, accepting and empathetic in their interactions with them. 

Steve Haines is a bodyworker and author who is deeply interested in pain, trauma and anxiety.   @stevehaines66

Dr Charley Baker is an associate professor of Mental Health at the University of Nottingham. @CharleyBaker1

Dr Angela Davis is a historian of motherhood and parenting in twentieth-century Britain. She is the author of Modern Motherhood: Women and Family in England, 1945–2000.

Dr Joshua Coleman is psychologist in private practice in the San Francisco Bay Area and a Senior Fellow with the Council on Contemporary Families, a non-partisan organization of leading sociologists, historians, psychologists and demographers dedicated to providing the press and public with the latest research and best practice findings about American families. @drjcoleman

Reverend Giles Fraser is the Vicar of St Anne’s in Kew, as well as being a journalist and author. His most recent book is Chosen: Lost and Found Between Christianity and Judaism, and in 2017 he made a series for Radio 4 - “This Old Heart of Mine” - about the experience of surviving a heart attack and bypass surgery. It gave him the chance to reflect on matters of the heart - physical, emotional, and spiritual. @giles_fraser

Alex Evans is a visual artist, director and creative facilitator living and working in London. He is proud to be the Artistic Director of Kazzum Arts, after taking on the role in June 2017. @KazzumArts

"Living With Feeling" is produced by Natalie Steed for Rhubarb Rhubarb, and supported by the Wellcome Trust. It is brought to you by the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions. Find out more about our work at The Emotions Lab website.

Childhood Trauma

Do wellbeing apps and emotional mood trackers make you feel nervous, furious, or happy?

In this episode, historian of emotions and author Richard Firth-Godbehere goes in search of the science, technology, ethics, and feelings behind emotional AI.

Fellow historian Thomas Dixon acts a guinea pig for Richard, trying out some emotion-tracking apps. with emotionally mixed results, while Richard speaks to historians, ethicists, and others about the theory of “basic emotions” that hampers a lot of emotional AI, and also the ethical dilemmas posed by the ability of big tech companies to harvest and store increasingly intimate information about our feelings and our bodies.

Along the way, Richard reflects on the long history of emotional objects - and how bits of technology, old and new, can conjure up strong feelings, as well as encountering a award-winning app designed for children who have lost a loved one, and thinking about how he might have responded to it when he lost his own father.

Dr Charley Baker is an associate professor of Mental Health at the University of Nottingham. @CharleyBaker1

Professor Thomas Dixon is Director of the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions, the author of Weeping Britannia: Portrait of a Nation in Tears (2015), and previously presented "The Sound of Anger" podcast series. @ProfThomasDixon

Louis Weinstock is a psychotherapist and the author of How the World is Making Our Children Mad and What to Do About It

Dr Sally Holloway is Vice Chancellor’s Research Fellow in History & History of Art, School of History, Philosophy and Culture, Oxford Brookes University where she researches the histories of emotional culture, love, and heartbreak. @sally_holloway

Chloe Duckworth is Co-founder & CEO of Valence Vibrations

Professor Andrew McStay is Professor of Digital Life at Bangor University, and the author of Emotional AI: The Rise of Empathic Media. @digi_ad

"Living With Feeling" is produced by Natalie Steed for Rhubarb Rhubarb, and supported by the Wellcome Trust. It is brought to you by the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions. Find out more about our work at The Emotions Lab website.

Emotional AI

It's the final episode of the series, but what have we learned about emotions past, present, and future? Thomas Dixon, Sarah Chaney and Richard Firth-Godbehere reflect back on what they have learned from the series, discuss what emotions might look like in the future, whether we should stop telling people “Your emotions are valid”, and what historians of emotion looking back on our era might think in a few hundred years’ time. 

What will future people think about the roles of - for instance - psychiatry and social media - in shaping the ways we interpret and express our feelings in the 21st century?

Is there any reason to think that things will be any less emotional in the future, or that machines and AI will fundamentally change the way human beings feel?

Join Thomas, Sarah, and Richard to find out.

Thomas Dixon is Director of the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions, the author of Weeping Britannia: Portrait of a Nation in Tears (2015), and previously presented "The Sound of Anger" podcast series. @ProfThomasDixon

Sarah Chaney is a historian of nursing and emotions. Her most recent book is called Am I Normal? The 200-Year Search for Normal People (and Why They Don’t Exist)  @KentishScribble

Richard Firth Godbehere is a historian of disgust - among many other emotions - and the author of a sweeping and scintillating book entitled  A Human History of Emotion: How the Way We Feel Built the World We Know. @DrRichFG

"Living With Feeling" is produced by Natalie Steed for Rhubarb Rhubarb, and supported by the Wellcome Trust. It is brought to you by the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions. Find out more about our work at The Emotions Lab website.

Future Feelings

A series of short podcasts on different emotions, made with researchers from the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions. 

These podcasts were commissioned as part of a Wellcome Trust funded research project, 'Living With Feeling: Emotional Health in History, Philosophy, and Experience', and were produced by Natalie Steed.

Unfeeling

Sympathy

Shame

Lust

Dr Guy Hayward is a sort of guerrilla agitator for Anglicanism, helping connect its cultural treasure to the majority of British people who no longer consider themselves Christian. A chorister and cabaret singer, he's also the founder of two initiatives - the British Pilgrimage Trust (co-founded with Will Parsons), which works to re-open and publicize ancient pilgrimage routes around the UK; and www.choralevensong.org, which helps to publicize free evensong services all around the UK. Both of these help to connect people to transcendent Christian practices, even if they don't believe in Christian dogma.

Dr Guy Hayward on finding transcendence through pilgrimage & evensong

Historian of emotions Edgar Gerrard Hughes reflects on the ways that sounds, or silence, could express grief and mourning, especially in the nineteenth century.

This is one of a series of short podcasts exploring what we do at the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions.

Grief

In this episode, Thomas Dixon reads some extracts from his favourite text about angry emotions, the Roman philosopher Seneca's treatise on rage - De Ira. 

This is one of a series of short podcasts exploring what we do at the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions, and also a part of 'The Sound of Anger' podcast series.  It was produced by Natalie Steed.

The Sound of Anger. SHORT. Seneca's De Ira

In this opening episode of a new podcast series about anger from the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions, historian of emotions Thomas Dixon sets out to discover what anger really is. He meets experts including psychologists and historians, and confronts his own furious demons, in an attempt to find an answer. Is there a "basic emotion" of anger or only a range of loosely related furious feelings? What can science tell us? Does anything hold together all the varieties of rage, wrath and revenge? Contributors include Lore Lixenberg, Matthew Dodd, Jo Anne Nadler, Sarah Garfinkel, Charlotte Rose Millar, Kehinde Andrews, Jim Russell and Jerry Parrott. 
Presenter: Thomas Dixon
Producer: Natalie Steed

The Sound of Anger: 1. What is it?

Historian of emotions Thomas Dixon continues his exploration of angry emotions. In this episodes he tries to discover how anger sounds, feels, and looks. Again, diversity seems to be the norm. Different bodies feel furious in different ways, and not all cultures have the same ways of expressing emotions.  Thomas hears from opera singer Lore Lixenberg, political journalist Jo-Anne Nadler, and historians Imke Rajamani and Fern Riddell.  He also introduces listeners to one of his favourite books about anger, by anthropologist Jean Briggs.

Contributors: Laura Rosenthal, Lore Lixenberg, Jo-Anne Nadler, Charlotte Rose Millar, Jerry Parrott, Imke Rajamani, Matthew Dodd, Sarah Garfinkel, Jim Russell, Fern Riddell, 

The Voice of Jean L Briggs: Karina Fernandez

Extracts used with permission from Never in Anger: Portrait of an Eskimo Family by Jean L. Briggs, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1970 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Presenter: Thomas Dixon
Producer: Natalie Steed

The Sound of Anger: 2. How does it feel?

Do we live in an age of rage? And if so, what can we learn about our furious feelings, and how to control them, from the experiences and ideas of great thinkers in the past?  Those are the questions explored in a pair of thought-provoking and darkly funny new audio dramas by playwright Craig Baxter, commissioned by the Living With Feeling project at Queen Mary University of London’s Centre for the History of the Emotions, and directed and produced by Natalie Steed.  

SENECA ANNOYED is a philosophical tragicomedy about emotions and ideas set in ancient Rome. When the order comes to him from Emperor Nero that he kill himself, the Stoic philosopher Seneca determines to dispatch himself in a calm and dignified manner. He hasn’t counted, though, on the frailty of his own body, the incompetence of his friends, or the blind fury of his wife, Paulina.

CAST: Seneca is played by Adam Kotz, Paulina by Jasmine Hyde, and Fabius by Geoffrey Streatfeild. The centurion is Michael Bertenshaw.

Produced and directed by Natalie Steed.
Recorded by David Chilton and Lucinda Mason Brown.

The Sound of Anger. DRAMA. Seneca Annoyed

Historian of emotions Thomas Dixon completes his personal odyssey through the history, feelings, and meanings of angry emotions. In this episode, he asks whether domestic, everyday anger is the same thing as political anger, and wonders about the relationship between angry dads, angry protesters, and emotional health. 

Thomas hates his own anger and dreams of a world with no anger, but learns reasons that others see it as politically essential. Backstage at the 2019 Free Thinking Festival in Sage Gateshead, Thomas talks to Matthew Dodd of BBC Radio 3 about being an angry dad, and hears from Professor Kehinde Andrews about the importance of anger for Malcolm X.  In a conversation about male privilege, sexual violence, and political anger, Thomas is guided by Dr Fern Riddell towards evidence of the fury and violence of suffragettes in the 1910s. 

Neuroscientist Sarah Garfinkel talks about the possibility of protesting without angry emotions, and Thomas ends up pondering whether disagreements about the necessity and value of political anger reveal underlying differences of both class and philosophy. And finally, what can a Stoic philosopher such as Seneca teach us about anger and emotional health?

Contributors:  Matthew Dodd, Fern Riddell, Kehinde Andrews, Charlotte Rose Millar, Sarah Garfinkel.

The voice of Christabel Pankhurst: Karina Fernandez

Presenter: Thomas Dixon
Producer: Natalie Steed

The Sound of Anger: 3. What is it good for?

Join James Morland on his journey through poetic images of loneliness, as he wanders towards its emotional meaning.   

This is one of a series of short podcasts exploring what we do at the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions.

Loneliness

Agnes Arnold-Forster traces the history of nostalgia, from homesick Swiss mercenaries to contemporary US politics, and examines its effects on the professional lives of healthcare practitioners working in the NHS. 

This is one of a series of short podcasts exploring what we do at the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions.

Nostalgia

Tiffany Watt Smith looks back to 1930s London to discover what a rumbled drag ball can teach us about schadenfreude – the joy we feel in another’s misfortune. 

This is one of a series of short podcasts exploring what we do at the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions.

Schadenfreude

An autobiographical essay on solitude, walking, the natural world, and emotions by the novelist and nature writer Melissa Harrison.

Melissa reflects on what solitude has meant to her - and to others - from her childhood and early adult years to the recent period of lockdown in the summer of 2020. Recorded outside in the Suffolk countryside, this essay explores Melissa's feelings about living on her own and how she finds her most honest self through solitude in nature. She also reflects on what is has meant for women to be on their own in the past and the present. 

This essay was originally written in connection with the BBC Radio 4 series, 'A Short History of Solitude': https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000m57m 

Find Melissa's podcast 'The Stubborn Light of Things' here: https://melissaharrison.co.uk/podcast/

This episode is presented by Thomas Dixon and produced by Natalie Steed, as part of the 'Living With Feeling' project at Queen Mary University of London, supported by the Wellcome Trust: https://projects.history.qmul.ac.uk/livingwithfeeling/

Melissa Harrison on Solitude

How did gardens come to play such a key part in the history of solitude? Hetta Howes sets out to answer this question with James Morland, who moves from the idyllic but complex seclusion of Eden to the refuge of queer ecology in Derek Jarman’s garden at Prospect Cottage to offer a reading of gardens as spaces of escape. Laura Seymour discusses how 17th-century gardens provided a sense of liberty in the face of political furore, and Stephen Bending talks us through design versus wilderness and the opportunities that gardens have provided for women. Finally, Hetta speaks to Rosie Fyles, the Head Gardener at Ham House, about the history of collaboration in creating garden spaces.

Contributors: James Morland (Queen Mary University of London), Laura Seymour (Birkbeck, University of London), Rosie Fyles (Ham House) and Stephen Bending (University of Southampton)

Presented by Hetta Howes
Curated by James Morland 
Produced by Natalie Steed
Readings by Sam West
Sound recording from An English Country Garden in July by Keith Selmes (CC Attribution License)

The Garden

In the opening episode of our series, Hetta Howes and Barbara Taylor take us on a journey through the history of spiritual solitude. Why have people of faith chosen to be alone throughout the ages and what perils do they face in doing so? Hetta meets Hilary Powell to discuss the secluded lives of medieval anchorites and hermits, and Revd Erica Longfellow to learn about the sociable religious landscape of the 17th century. Later she speaks to James Morland about the natural world as a space for solitary contemplation, before a conversation with Brother James Koester about the fine line between solitude and loneliness in a modern-day monastic community. 

Contributors: Hilary Powell (Durham University) , Erica Longfellow (New College, Oxford), James Morland (Queen Mary University of London), James Koester (Society of Saint John the Evangelist)

Presented by Hetta Howes
Curated by Barbara Taylor 
Produced by Natalie Steed 
Readings by Miles Richardson

The Sanctum

Hetta Howes and James Morland continue their exploration of solitude in this episode, pondering the perilous places we sometimes enter in the search for aloneness. James introduces listeners to the graveyard poets of the 18th century, who sought out places of darkness to explore their biggest fears and deepest anxieties. Hetta then speaks to Josh Cohen about Emily Dickinson’s reclusive tendencies, the imagined wildernesses she created locked away in her room, and the ways in which, historically, seclusion and solitude could make women simultaneously conspicuous and invisible. Finally, she talks to Barbara Taylor about John Donne’s terrifying struggle with solitude in his sickroom and what we can learn from those most troubling forms of aloneness when care has disappeared. 

*Correction: the poem ‘The Wilderness’ referenced in this podcast episode was misattributed to Emily Dickinson and is by 20th-century poet Kathleen Raine. For more on wilderness and solitude in Dickinson, see her poem, ‘Had I not seen the sun’.
 
Contributors: James Morland (Queen Mary University of London), Josh Cohen (Goldsmiths University), Barbara Taylor (Queen Mary University of London)

Presented by Hetta Howes 
Curated by James Morland 
Produced by Natalie Steed
Readings by James Morland and Sam West

Perilous Places

The German sociologist Georg Simmel famously claimed that ‘one nowhere feels as lonely and lost as in the metropolitan crowd’. Hetta Howes and Charlie Williams take a walk through London to explore this classic idea of loneliness and the many ways of being alone in a city. They hear from Matthew Beaumont about the long tradition of ‘nightwalkers’, a mantle applied to vagrants, sex workers, migrants and bohemians, all searching for different opportunities in the city after dark. Hetta speaks to Leo Coleman about the development of the industrial city and the experiences of isolation that come with it, before being guided by Susheila Nasta through Sam Selvon’s classic novel of city newcomers, The Lonely Londoners.

Contributors: Charlie Williams (Queen Mary University of London), Matthew Beaumont (University College London), Leo Coleman (Hunter College, City University of New York), Susheila Nasta (Queen Mary University of London)

Presented by Hetta Howes 
Curated by Charlie Williams 
Produced by Natalie Steed 
Readings by Miles Richardson and Burt Caesar

The City

As part of the 'Spaces of Solitude' series, Hetta Howes speaks to researchers Lisa Guenther and Shokoufeh Sakhi. Lisa is a Canadian philosopher and activist who works on critical prison studies; Shokoufeh is a former political prisoner from Iran who writes about imprisonment and the self. In this conversation, they discuss the histories and philosophies of solitary confinement, and the many ways that carceral solitariness is physically and emotionally experienced.

Presented by Hetta Howes 
Produced by Natalie Steed

On Solitary Confinement

As part of the 'Spaces of Solitude' series, Hetta Howes presents a conversation between Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University, and the most Revd Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury. Discussion ranges from personal experiences of solitude and silence, to ‘thin-places’ and speaking in tongues.

Presented by Hetta Howes 
Produced by Natalie Steed

On Spiritual Solitude

In this episode, Hetta Howes and Charlie Williams look at experiences of imprisonment and solitary confinement, asking how we can understand the effects of enforced isolation on the human psyche?  They speak first to Lisa Guenther, who charts the rise and rise of solitary confinement in the United States and the links between this practice and the long history of slavery. Next, they hear from Andrea Brady about the ‘Jail Poems’ of Beat Poet Bob Kaufman and the perspective they provide on imprisonment as an existential condition. And finally, Hetta speaks to Shokoufeh Sakhi about her years as a political prisoner in Iran, the work of preserving connections with the world in the face of solitary confinement, and the power of creating beauty within the prison.  

Contributors: Charlie Williams, (Queen Mary University of London) Lisa Guenther (Queens University, Canada), Shokoufeh Sakhi (independent scholar), Andrea Brady (Queen Mary University of London)

Presented by Hetta Howes 
Curated by Charlie Williams
Produced by Natalie Steed 
Readings by Miles Richardson and Burt Caesar

The Cell

What is the mind? Can we think of it as a ‘space’? Where might we look for the mind and what might be going on inside it when we experience solitude? These are some of the questions addressed in this episode. We hear from neuroscientist Sarah Garfinkel about the mind as an interface between brain and heart, and historian of psychoanalysis Akshi Singh about the mind as a space contained in objects that evoke memory and unlock experience. The poet and philosopher Denise Riley describes the imagined interiors of our bodies and the vulnerability of the inner voice, whilst psychoanalyst and writer Adam Philips discusses what might be happening in the mind when we can’t bear to be alone.  

Contrbutors: Akshi Singh (Queen Mary University of London), Sarah Garfinkel (University College, London), Adam Phillips (psychoanalyst and writer), Denise Riley (University of East Anglia)

Presented by Hetta Howes 
Curated by Akshi Singh 
Produced by Natalie Steed

The Mind

This is a podcast from the Centre for the History of Emotions at Queen Mary, University of London. 'The Sound of Anger' won two gold British Podcast Awards in 2020.  Subscribe on Apple Podcasts via iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/living-with-feeling/id1186251350?mt=2

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